Many companies package items and/or groups of items together for a variety of purposes, such as e-commerce and mail-order companies that package items (e.g., books, CDs, apparel, food, etc.) to be shipped to fulfill orders from customers. Retailers, wholesalers, and other product distributors (which may collectively be referred to as distributors) typically maintain an inventory of various items that may be ordered by customers. This inventory may be maintained and processed at a materials handling facility which may include, but is not limited to, one or more of: warehouses, distribution centers, cross-docking facilities, order fulfillment facilities, packaging facilities, shipping facilities, or other facilities or combinations of facilities for performing one or more functions of material (inventory) handling.
In some instances, a customer may order an item and designate a pickup location as the delivery location. A pickup location may include a control station and storage compartments where the items that are ordered from a materials handling facility can be delivered for pickup by customers. Rather than shipping the item to a residence or place of business, the item may be shipped to the pickup location and stored in a storage compartment for retrieval by the customer. For various reasons (e.g., holiday shopping, popular locations, etc.) there may at various times be a high demand for having items shipped to a pickup location. As a result, the pickup location may reach a maximum capacity wherein there are no more storage compartments available for receiving additional items.
While implementations are described herein by way of example, those skilled in the art will recognize that the implementations are not limited to the examples or drawings described. It should be understood that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit implementations to the particular form disclosed but, on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean “including, but not limited to.”